A new production of Shakespeare’s Hamlet will be soundtracked by Radiohead’s 2003 album Hail to the Thief.
Hamlet Hail to the Thief will see “Shakespeare’s words and Radiohead’s album illuminate one
another in thrilling new ways as the music becomes a critical part of the narrative” a press release reveals. The production will include a cast of 20 musicians and actors performing the album live onstage during the play.
Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke has collaborated with Tony and Olivier award-winner Christine Jones and Olivier award-winner Steven Hoggett for the production.
Hamlet Hail to the Thief will premiere at Manchester’s Aviva Studios, home of Factory International, in Manchester on Apr 27 and will run there until May 18, 2025. The production then transfers to the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford Upon Avon, England from June 4 – 28, 2025. Tickets for the production go on sale on October 2; more details can be found here.
Speaking about the new arrangements of Hail To The Thief, Yorke said in a statement that it was an “interesting and intimidating challenge”. He added: “Adapting the original music of Hail To The Thief for live performance with the actors on stage to tell this story that is forever being told, using its familiarity and sounds, pulling them into and out of context, seeing what chimes with the underlying grief and paranoia of Hamlet, using the music as a ‘presence’ in the room, watching how it collides with the action and the text. Ghosting one against the other.”
Hail To The Thief was released in 2003 by the British band amidst the fallout of the invasion of Iraq and was critical of President George W. Bush’s ‘war on terror’ following 9/11. The album landed at No.3 on the Billboard 200 and at No.1 on the U.K.’s Official Album Charts and its artwork, which is incorporated in the play’s promotional poster, was created by frequent collaborator Stanley Donwood.
Speaking in 2003, Yorke said that the album’s lyrical content was influenced by “the rise of doublethink and the rise of general intolerance and madness, and feeling very much like individuals were totally out of control of the situation” and that “the force of the music gave me licence I think to explore all these things, really”. It spawned three singles, “2+2=5”, “Go To Sleep” and “There, There”.
Jones, who has previously collaborated with Hoggett on Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, and the stage adaptation of Green Day’s American Idiot said that William Shakespeare’s play, written between 1599 and 1601, aligned with their love of Radiohead’s record.
“Paying attention to the lyrics, I became aware of how many songs from Hail to the Thief speak to the themes of the play,” Jones says. “There are uncanny reverberances between the text and the album. For years I’ve wanted to see the play and album collide in a piece of theatre; eventually I shared the idea with Thom, who was intrigued.
Radiohead released their most recent album A Moon Shaped Pool in 2016 and the band members have worked on new projects ever since. Yorke and Jonny Greenwood’s The Smile will release their third studio album Cutouts on XL Recordings on Oct 4.
The band’s bassist Colin Greenwood recently revealed that the band had recently reconvened to rehearse but shared no news of imminent music.